Another Place

Convinced that there was no possibility of a reasonable or rational outcome from this poorly planned and absolutely absurd attempt at family, I decided once I got started that I wasn’t going to be all that concerned about being late for breakfast. This was an opportunity that I will most likely never see again, and even if I ever do, may not possess the ability to take advantage of it. There were a few tourists milling in the lobby as I moved through the cavernous, marble clad and crystal chandeliered space, over to the right doors where the square, silver handicapped button could be depressed and the glass would open gracefully and invitingly. Half a block to Mission and then a left towards the water, getting up to speed quickly, maybe moving little too fast I thought, I’d better take it easy, at least for the first ten blocks or so, being that I had no fixed distance or destination in mind.
It was Saturday morning and the streets were quiet, sparsely populated by a scattering of homeless pushing weary shopping carts festooned with overstuffed and weathered, black plastic trash bags. Another lay on the sidewalk, up against a polished façade, shrouded in a tattered and dirty, lime green blanket. A prep cook all in white loaded boxes of produce into his kitchen while others took squeegees to storefront glass and hosed down the sidewalks.
I’d never run in a city before, any city. This was a new game, trying to maintain forward momentum while constantly scouting for safe passage through intersections, occasionally changing course when the hand was red and the L.E.D. readout ticked toward zero, other times accelerating to a sprint in an impromptu duel with the cross traffic.
It’s only nine or ten blocks to the Embarcadero, we had all bused there yesterday afternoon for a dinner that in many ways foreshadowed the one that was to follow the next evening, as well as the day that preceded it. I thought for a moment about going the other way, out towards the old neighborhood, probably no more than fourteen or fifteen blocks, but the thought passed as quickly as it had come, that place held no nostalgia, I needed the bay as my companion.
After crossing the four lane thoroughfare, the median and the trolley car tracks, I turned right at the water’s edge and headed for the Bay Bridge. It didn’t look to be more than a mile or two away. As I jogged alongside the concrete seating, decorated with bronze turtles and crabs, the rising sun settled into the center of the arc of the bridge’s suspension cables, like a fiery marble pulled back in a slingshot, poised to be released.
Under the massive structure and then another half mile and a lap around a large, asphalt lot that jutted into the bay where a few slept in their aging, rusted cars, occasionally running the engine to fight off the chill of the morning. A practice I’m not entirely unfamiliar with.
I thought this might make an appropriate mid point and started back the way I had come, passing others along the way moving in the opposite direction, sometimes waving or nodding, never garnering a response, they all seemed emotionless, robotic, looking only straight ahead, being certain that any eye contact was kept out of the equation.
Maybe one block farther than I had started and I could make my way back to the hotel on the red brick sidewalks of Market Street.
A farmers market was setting up under an array of pop up tents just outside the recently renovated Ferry Building. As I moved past I regretted not having a dollar that I could toss onto the table in exchange for a peach that was perched at the top of one of the displays.
Market Street came and went. I caught a glimpse of the Golden Gate in the distance, canopied by the thick band of clouds that has probably always hung in that particular spot and will probably never leave. Fisherman’s Wharf became my new destination, probably not as far as Ghirardelli Square, that would get me into the hills, Pier Forty Five, the last one, and one of the orchestra members that symphonically contributed to my demise and subsequent reincarnation, I wanted to see it again, no longer as a threat, no longer as something that tortured, but as nothing more than a hollow shell. It seemed distant but at this particular moment I felt as if I had just begun my journey and could go on indefinitely.
I was admiring the row of beefy looking palms standing motionless in a row along the center median when I heard their calls, pulling me off course and onto one of the wooden piers that go a little way out into the bay. The slap of my sneakers on the concrete changed to a dull, hollow thud as I made my way passed a woman in one of the turnouts engaged in Tai Chi. I spotted them off to my right before I was halfway out, easily a hundred. Sea lions lounging on the low, floating docks below, their barks growing louder as I approached. I couldn’t help but smile as I turned and headed back to continue on my chosen course.
The odor of frying bacon invaded my senses for the second time as I passed one of the bakeries near the wharf, just shy of my destination. When finally arriving I did a kind of rain dance, running in circles in front of the locked, glass doors a couple of times, attempting to make out the silhouette of my former nemesis. I couldn’t and didn’t particularly care, not wanting to dwell here, now moving with the bay to my left and the Bay Bridge once again in my vision. There was no way for me to judge how far I’d gone, only by the amount of time I’d been out, and I wouldn’t know this until getting back to the hotel, not that it really mattered, just curious.
I caught sight of the clock that decorated the central tower of the Ferry Building, the hands on the front were obviously out of sync, the face on the side reading a hair before eight. At my usual pace I’d be near seven miles with at least one still to go. I felt comfortable, undaunted, barely sweating in the cool, damp, morning air. Back to Market and across the tracks where a small craft fair was being assembled under its own variety of temporary shelters. I paid it little attention as I ran through the center, speeding up perceptibly, wincing just a little as I passed the tables filled with ceramics and jewelry. The aroma of bacon returned three blocks down, inspiring thoughts of breakfast, then back to Fourth Street and another left that would bring me to the hotel, not slowing until reaching the front door and opting to pass it by in favor of a slower walk around the block to cool down just a little, stopping by a corner lamp post to stretch my back.
Up to the room and a quick shower before joining the others in the second floor restaurant where the two boys were already running wild, unsupervised and unchallenged, through the tables and the planters, disturbing enough to drive other patrons to move to more distant corners.